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Oct-07-2013 13:38 
FDA Accused of 'Pay to Play' Involving Universities of Rochester and Washington; Experts Connect Epidemic of OxyContin Addiction
Marianne Skolek Salem-News.com
Pain Medicine News is mailed to "the highest-prescribers of pain medication." Why would they target the highest prescribers? Could it possibly be to keep the flow of painkillers in the US and Canada to increase the profits to Purdue Pharma and other pharmaceutical companies riding the addiction and death train?
(MYRTLE BEACH, SC) - My interest has been peaked by a newspaper called Pain Medicine News advertising itself as THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER FOR PAIN MANAGEMENT.
There are problems here though. First at the top of the page of Pain Medicine News very proudly displayed is the "Purdue Pharma" insignia with an invitation for the reader to visit PurdueHCP.com. Here is the link https://www.purduehcp.com/hcpportal/f?p=201201:SAVINGS:796322138540001: If you click on this link, it opens to a page offering substantial savings for patients being prescribed Purdue's highly addictive painkiller, OxyContin. It is called "patient saving coupons" offered by the $13 billion pharmaceutical company responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and addictions because physicians were told there was only a 1% risk of addiction in taking OxyContin. So my question to Pain Medicine News is -- where did you come up with the words "independent newspaper" -- when you're being hand fed financially by Purdue Pharma?
Then the newspaper further predominantly displays the following information to the medical profession:
Pain Medicine News (PMN), is designed to meet the needs of the spectrum of physicians involved in managing pain, including pain specialists, primary care physicians, physiatrists, neurologists, orthopedic surgeons, rheumatologists, oncologists, etc., and is mailed monthly to 50,393 pain-treating physicians that are the highest-prescribers of pain medication in these specialties.
So what jumped out at me? Pain Medicine News is mailed to "the highest-prescribers of pain medication." Why would they target the highest prescribers? Could it possibly be to keep the flow of painkillers in the US and Canada to increase the profits to Purdue Pharma and other pharmaceutical companies riding the addiction and death train?
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In the October issue of Pain Medicine News there is an interview with the self-proclaimed pain guru of the country -- Lynn Webster, MD. The same Dr. Webster whose pain clinic in Salt Lake City, Utah was raided by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) a few years ago and is now under investigation for up to 24 deaths at his pain clinic. He is also under U.S Senate investigation for possibily profiting from the pharmaceutical industry in pushing pain killers. So I read with interest Dr. Webster's interview and was stunned to read what he said about the recent Federal Drug Administration (FDA) changes to opioid labeling as relates to unborn babies. Lynn Webster, MD, is currently president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine (also under U.S. Senate investigation) and made the following statement which should send red flags not only to the medical profession, but also the DEA, the FDA and every attorney general in the country: Dr. Webster praised the FDA’s inclusion of a boxed warning on neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome, but used the labeling change announcement as an opportunity to point out a common misconception. “An important positive development was adding a boxed warning that babies born to mothers on opioids may experience opioid withdrawal,” he said. “However, it should be noted that the media has often mischaracterized the withdrawal as a sign the babies are addicted. This is not correct. Babies become physically dependent through their mothers and have to be treated for withdrawal like adults who experience withdrawal. Of course, this is very stressful and a miserable experience for an infant.”
The "media" has often mischaracterized the withdrawal as a sign the babies are addicted - and this is not correct? Are you playing games with the lives of babies Dr. Webster -- because it is addiction -- and perpetrated on the undeveloped brains of our most vulnerable -- newborns. If you are, in fact, playing games I visualize a king in a chess game -- and newborns as pawns. I only hope the wheels of justice take on the role of "checkmate" and put an end to an extreme narcissist king's distortion of the truth resulting in tremendous loss of life in addiction and death. Since Dennis C. Turk, PhD and Lynn Webster, MD are both very entrenched in the American Pain Society -- it appears they passed "GO" and may have won "Boardwalk and Park Place." | Pain Medicine News Editorial Board |
| ANESTHESIOLOGY/PAIN MEDICINE |
| | Sanjay Gupta, MD
Director, Atlantic Pain and Wellness Institute
Philadelphia, PA Mark J. Lema, MD, PhD
Chairman of Anesthesiology,
Critical Care & Pain Medicine, Roswell Park
Cancer Institute, Professor and Chairman of Anesthesiology
Associate Research Professor of Experimental Pathology, University at Buffalo
State University of New York, Buffalo, NY  Joseph V. Pergolizzi, Jr, MD Adjunct Assistant Professor Department of Medicine Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Baltimore, MD Naples Anesthesia and Pain Associates Naples, FL Peter S. Staats, MD
Director, Division of Pain Medicine, Associate Professor of Anesthesiology
Critical Care Medicine, and Oncology,
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, MD Dennis C. Turk, PhD
Immediate Past President, American Pain Society
Editor-in-Chief, Clinical Journal of Pain
John and Emma Bonica Professor of Anesthesiology & Pain Research
Department of Anesthesiology
University of Washington, Seattle, WA | | | | EMERGENCY MEDICINE |
| | Knox Todd, MD, MPH
Director, Pain and Emergency Medicine Institute
Department of Emergency Medicine, Beth Israel
Medical Center, New York, NY Don Yealy, MD
Professor and Vice Chair of Emergency Medicine
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA | | | | FAMILY PRACTICE |
| | Bill McCarberg, MD
Founder, Chronic Pain Management Program, Kaiser
Permanente, Escondido, CA
Assistant Clinical Professor-Voluntary
University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, La Jolla, CA | | | | INTERNAL MEDICINE |
| | Aaron Vinik, MD, PhD
Professor of Internal Medicine,
Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, VA Michael Loes, MD
Director, Arizona Pain Institute, Phoenix, AZ | | | | INTERVENTIONAL PAIN MEDICINE |
| Sunil J. Panchal, MD
Editor in Chief, Seminars in Pain
Director, Interventional Pain Medicine
Associate Professor of Oncology and Anesthesiology
University of South Florida College of Medicine
Tampa, FL | | | | LEGAL ISSUES |
|  Jennifer Bolen, JD
Founder, Legal Side of Pain
Knoxville, TN | | | | NEUROLOGY |
| Alexander Mauskop, MD
Director, New York Headache Center
New York, NY | | | | ONCOLOGY |
| | Gary E. Deng, MD, PhD
Assistant Attending, Assistant Member
Integrative Medicine Service
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY | | | | ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY |
| Jeffrey S. Kaplan, MD
New York, NY | | | | PAIN MANAGEMENT |
|  Russell K. Portenoy, MD
Chair, Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care
Beth Israel Medical Center, New York, NY | | | | PALLIATIVE CARE |
|  Yvonne D’Arcy, CRNP, CNS Pain and Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner Suburban Hospital Bethesda, MD
 David I. Wollner, MD Director of Palliative Care, Metropolitan Jewish Health System Brooklyn, NY | | | | PEDIATRICS |
| | William T. Zempsky, MD
Associate Director, Pain Relief Program
Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine
University of Connecticut, Hartford, CT | | | | PHARMACOTHERAPY |
| | Robert L. Barkin, MBA, PharmD, FCP
Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Family Medicine and Pharmacology
Clinical Pharmacologist
Rush University Medical Center
Rush Pain Center, Chicago, IL
North Shore Pain Center, Skokie, IL | | | | PHYSICAL MEDICINE AND REHABILITATION |
| | Kavita Gupta, DO
Assistant Professor,
UMDNJ School of Osteopathic
Medicine, Stratford, NJ Steven Stanos, DO
Medical Director,
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
Pain Care Center, Chicago, IL | | | | PSYCHIATRY |
| | Lesley M. Arnold, MD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Director, Women’s Health Research Program
University of Cincinnati Medical Center
Cincinnati, OH William S. Breitbart, MD
Chief, Psychiatry Service,
Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center, New York, NY Barry Eliot Cole, MD
Executive Director
American Society of Pain Educators, Montclair, NJ
Pain Management Consultant
Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, Honolulu, HI David A. Fishbain, MD
Professor of Psychiatry
Adjunct Professor
Neurological Surgery and Anesthesiology
University of Miami, Miami, FL | | | | PSYCHOLOGY |
| Steven D. Passik, PhD
Associate Attending Psychiatrist
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Cornell University College of Medicine
New York, NY | | | | RHEUMATOLOGY |
| Roland Staud, MD
Director, Musculoskeletal Pain Research
Associate Professor
University of Florida College of Medicine
Gainesville, FL |
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LP - Peace, encouragement, respect, laughter and so much faith in our paths - I love you. Investigative Reporter for Salem-News.com covering OxyContin and prescription drug epidemic in the U.S. and Canada
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